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| Panel works to help released inmates |
| By mitchellrepublic.com |
| Published: 03/27/2009 |
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By CHET BROKAW Associated Press Writer The Associated Press - Thursday, March 26, 2009 PIERRE, S.D. South Dakota must reduce the number of released inmates who get in trouble and wind up returning to prison, state Corrections Secretary Tim Reisch said Thursday. Nearly half of all inmates released from the state prison system are back behind bars within three years because they violate parole or commit new crimes, Reisch said. The state, city and county agencies and other organizations must provide the services that released inmates need to succeed, Reisch said at the first meeting of the Governor's Re-entry Council, a panel appointed by Gov. Mike Rounds to cut the number of inmates who return to prison. Inmates need jobs, housing, transportation and many other services that can include medical care, mental health counseling, food stamps and treatment for sex offenders, Reisch told the council members. The council's first task is to coordinate the application for a federal grant that would finance a demonstration project aimed at providing services to released inmates in the Sioux Falls and Rapid City areas. "It's just really disturbing how many of our offenders go in and out and in and out of prison," Reisch said after Thursday's meeting. "We've got to figure out how we can stop that cycle." Congress passed the Second Chance Act nearly a year ago to help states and communities reduce the rate of recidivism, which is defined in the federal law as a return to prison within 12 months of release. State and local agencies will cooperate to develop a grant application that will be submitted next month for a demonstration project that will focus on Minnehaha and Pennington counties. Each of those counties receives more than 20 percent of the inmates released from state prisons. In South Dakota, about 30 percent of inmates released wind up returning to prison within a year, 39 percent within two years, and 45 percent within three years, according to Corrections Department records. Reisch said South Dakota's average daily adult prison population has risen from 2,267 in 1998 to a projected 3,451 this year, an increase of nearly 1,200 in 11 years. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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